A lot of don’ts after the Bolts do a lot

Don’t say this is the way it was supposed to be all along. Don’t ask where have these guys been? Don’t say this is more like it. Don’t say this is what could have been, because this is not what could have been. This was a beautiful aberration.

No matter what expectations so many of us had for the Chargers, we didn’t believe they could be this thorough, this tough, this cerebral, this good for 60 minutes against one of baddest teams roaming the NFL’s mean streets. Besides, a month ago they couldn’t have beaten pancake batter.

But this is December, when the Chargers become more magical than Tebow. Quarterback Philip Rivers is 22-2 in his Decembers. Head coach Norv Turner is 20-2.

It’s doubtful this one game will save Tenuous Turner’s job or even GM A.J. Smith’s weathered hide, but the Chargers taxidermied the Ravens 34-14 Sunday evening in San Diego/Jack Murphy/Qualcomm/Snapdragon Stadium, and if everything had gone right, the visitors, habitually a putrid road team, might not have scored at all.

The Chargers don’t always kick butt. They don’t always man-up on the muscle. They did Sunday night. This was their Super Bowl without portfolio.

But I’ve seen too much bad football this season, too much failure, too much dumb stuff, too many injuries, to say the Chargers could have been this good, week in and week out, or the Baltimores this bad.

“We’re definitely surprised,” said Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco. “It was just bad. They came out and played well and we didn’t play that well.”

We now know the Chargers can be this good, when many of their injuries have been cleansed and their moons aligned, the pressure’s put on other teams to win and not come back to them, and that they remain, however improbably, in the chase of the AFC West title and a wild card berth (Sunday proved beyond all doubt how bad The League can be).

The trick is doing it, if not all the time, at least on a consistent basis. They are 7-7 because they deserve to be 7-7. This one superb victory didn’t lift them to 10-4. As Bill Parcells says, “You are what your record says you are.”

And despite it all, their record would be better, thick in the thickest part of this thicket, had they been smart and somehow realized their biggest enemy was living in their own barracks.

The Chargers have been victims of football friendly fire.

“Every time we win a game, the first thing that pops into my mind are the games we let get away,” said Rivers, who when it comes to pure, on-the-dollar throwing of the football, rarely has had a better event than he did vs. Baltimore.

Still, to diss this win would be foolish. All wins are good, for one thing, all losses bad, for two, but for all their faults, the Chargers do have character. They may not have always played well, but they never stopped playing for Turner, despite all the rumors that this will be his final season here.

“When they are healthy, they are a great team,” terrific Ravens tailback Ray Rice was saying.

Well, they still aren’t healthy and they’ve rarely been great, this Sunday night thing being an exception. They smacked down this team. They played with their old athletic arrogance, with confidence, with intelligence (which has been lacking).

“That team came out ready to play,” Rice added. “They did not turn the ball over. They executed on third downs. Look at the statistics. That is a winning performance. They came out and played a complete football game.”

Remember, the Chargers had not defeated a club with a winning record — Denver was a loser when the Chargers took care of the Broncos — but the Ravens came in 10-3, with a whole lot of people believing they were the best team in the AFC.

But, for whatever reason, they stink on the road. They’ve lost 19 straight road games when they’ve trailed at halftime. They’re 3-4 away from home this season, Ravens coach John Harbaugh’s road record is beyond abysmal. But losing is one thing. They got woodshedded here.

You try to explain it. Rivers had thrown 17 interceptions, most in The League, through the team’s first 11 games. After losing six straight, the Chargers have won three in a row and Rivers has not thrown a pick in any of them.

Meanwhile, the Bolts picked Flacco twice. They sacked Flacco seven times. Rivers wasn’t sacked. Punter Mike Scifres never left the bench. No punts for San Diego. Total domination.

But we can’t help but believe this was more tease than reality. And the angry villagers will want to know why Turner couldn’t do this every week.

And that’s not a terrible question.

December is not a year-round month. The Chargers have to learn the Julian calendar offers others.